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Also, I think to people outside the UK, it may be less obvious that this is a style of writing that happens constantly here: A wealthy, probably privately educ
by dwroberts 3y ago
Also, I think to people outside the UK, it may be less obvious that this is a style of writing that happens constantly here:
A wealthy, probably privately educated journalist, lecturing the reader on how having formal education (that they possess) is unnecessary or bad. Or is being dispensed to the 'wrong' people. And instead, that there is some other invisible indicator that makes people worthy of being listened to - implied in this article to be 'judgement' but the actual idea being peddled (here and in every article of this type) is social class.
- cafard 3y agoThis is not wholly a UK phenomenon. People describing themselves as populists in the US media tend to come from a handful of schools, all quite distinguished.
- dwroberts 3y agoIt’s more than just populism though - our political and media classes are deeply intermeshed and overlapping. The previous prime minister was a newspaper columnist and returned to being one. His sister is also a journalist in a prominent paper. A previous chancellor was a newspaper editor. There is a very big class/power thing in journalism in the UK, so when an article like this turns up gesturing at Orwell (educated at Eton) with a vaguely anti-intellectual slant, I don’t think it means what it appears to at face-value
- arp242 3y agoI had never given a moment's thought about Orwell's education, or lack thereof, which is probably the case for most people. I'm unconvinced this is a significant reason for Orwell's enduring popularity. It seems to me that people who do actually look at/care about what education some author like Orwell had says more about those people than Orwell.